


Heartless

by angeleledhwen (kallistei), eledhwen (kallistei)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-23
Updated: 2003-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/angeleledhwen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/eledhwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius is going to pass on the important things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartless

It is a widely accepted fact that Lucius Malfoy has no heart.

When Lucius was sixteen years old, at some great ball, he overheard a conversation, a woman talking to her daughter. The daughter had been just his age, and he remembered that he had enjoyed dancing with her. She had seemed rather taken with him, but then, everyone was. But afterwards, he saw her mother lean over and whisper, not quite under her breath enough, “The Malfoys are all lovely to look at, but they are rotten inside. You will not dance with him again.” She had nodded, and avoided him most assiduously for the rest of the night, though he, seized by some imp of perversity, attempted to corner her into speaking to him again.

He finds it very strange that of all the things he remembers in his life, he remembers that. It is even more bizarre that, of all the things he remembers about that girl – whose name he has quite forgotten – the thing that is clearest is the clean line of her collarbone, sheathed in smooth white skin, exposed by the swooping neckline of her dress. He can recall, with near-perfect intensity, the fleeting impulse he had, as they danced, to place his mouth upon it and suck a bruise to that silken skin, directly over the bone.

When Lucius was seventeen years old, he made his first choice as an adult, and joined Voldemort. It was the best decision of his life. The Dark Lord showed him how to use his power, not as a bludgeon, but as a scalpel. Suddenly the world no longer smiled at his face, and his wealth, and his blood, all the while sneering at his ancestors, and by automatic extension, him. It rolled over and showed him its vulnerable belly, panting urgently for his approval. He saw straight to its heart, and had no compunctions about using it against itself. He, after all, had none to be turned back in similar manner – the world had been saying that for years.

When Lucius was twenty-three years old, he married Narcissa Black. It was, naturally, a marriage of convenience. After a suitably decorous interval of three years, she gave him a son. He called the boy Draco, after his own father, as was expected. Voldemort rose and, alongside him, Lucius. The opposition, Dumbledore and his ‘Order’, rallied itself against them, but the Death Eaters were far superior. They had no Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers to dilute their ranks, after all. Lucius juggled his two lives with supreme ease, and was content, in a way.

When Lucius was twenty-seven years old, Voldemort fell, defeated by a baby. Lucius, naturally, escaped the backlash against the Death Eaters. His position was secure by now – no one would ever call the Malfoys rotten again, where someone else might hear them. So he sold the most incriminating objects, and hid the rest, and continued to cultivate the Ministry, and the world. He watched his year-old son lying in his antique hand-carved cradle. He would show him how to conquer the world. He would show him how to cut out his own heart.


End file.
